The proposed cuts were denounced Thursday by arts and cultural groups and their supporters, including Brian Ferriso, director and chief curator of the Portland Art Museum and president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, which represents 245 North American museums. "The arts are a shared expression of the human spirit and a hallmark of our humanity," the association said in a statement.

Andrew Proctor, executive director of Portland's Literary Arts, was among many noting that the proposed cuts amount to less than 1 percent of the total federal budget proposal. "This is an ideological blow," Proctor said. "Cutting it isn't about saving money. It's about cutting it."

In purely financial terms, Oregon doesn't stand to lose much if the federal cultural agencies are eliminated.

According to the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency, in fiscal 2016 the National Endowment for the Arts made 32 direct grants totaling $795,000 to Oregon arts organizations and projects. It also gave $727,700 in partnership funding to the Arts Commission, which combined the money with state funds to make 267 additional grants. That's a total of $1.522 million for the entire state - just over 10 percent of the $14 million annual operating budget of the state's largest arts institution, the Portland Art Museum.

On the humanities side, Oregon Humanities, the National Endowment for the Humanities' state affiliate, received nearly $912,000 from the federal agency in 2016 toward its $1.5 million budget. "We take a very small amount of federal funds and amplify it and get it out all around the state," said executive director Adam Davis. The federal agency also makes other grants, typically in the four- and five-figure range, to other Oregon humanities organizations and projects.

It's where and how those federal arts and humanities funds land that is significant.

And "organizations who are in rural communities are going to be disproportionately affected by this cut," Proctor said. He cited eastern Oregon's Wallowa County as an example: It is home to Fishtrap as well as to the city of Joseph, which depends in part on its outdoor collection of life-size bronze sculptures to draw tourism dollars. "That is like the poster child for economic development in that region," he said, adding that "the investment from the NEA is so small and has had a tremendous impact on that little town and fragile economy."

As for the humanities, Davis said Oregon Humanities' work is a key contributor to weaving "the fabric of the state."

"Everything we do is in partnership with community organizations," he said, citing in particular Oregon Humanities' Conversation Project, which brings together communities to discuss topics ranging from immigrants and refugees to Oregonians' relationship with the wild.

"That's my biggest concern about this development - that all takes a hit. ... These are all efforts to strengthen our civic infrastructures," he said.

Ferriso said the arts and cultural agencies' primary significance lies in their depth and reach and how they've shaped American lives since their establishment in 1965. For instance, as a child he visited the King Tut exhibit, "Treasures of Tutankhamun," at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art - "it was an exhibition that I think shaped a generation and it was supported by the NEH," he said.

"Arts organizations across this country are phenomenal at bringing communities together," Proctor said, pointing to Literary Arts' sponsorship of a talk last week by Harvard sociologist Matthew Desmond about his new book, "Evicted," which examines housing instability.

"That event, though focused on an issue, was brought to you by an arts organization," Proctor said. "Thousands of people were there, one of the biggest events he's ever done."

"It's not about pretty things, your aesthetic, necessarily," Proctor said. It's about "this critical social glue that we provide."

An earlier version of this post mischaracterized National Endowment for the Humanities funding in Oregon.